People sometimes mistake short stories for trifles, wee vignettes that are over before they start. But there’s a reason why many of the best movies are based on short fiction rather than novels: a short story is just the right length to blow your mind. Here are 18 science fiction and short stories that rock our world.

1) “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov

This is one of the all-time great idea-driven stories, and it’s one that manages to be both cosmic and poignant. In 2061, humans create the first truly awesome supercomputer, Multivac, and decide to ask it how the net amount of entropy in the universe could be reduced. This turns out to be kind of a tricky question, and it takes rather a long time to get a satisfactory answer. This story contains all of Asimov’s penchant for big-picture storytelling, in one brilliant dose. Amazon/Powells

2) “The Daemon Lover” by Shirley Jackson

Everybody thinks of “The Lottery” as Jackson’s all-time great short story, but as Joyce Carol Oates says in her introduction to Jackson’s collected stories, this one is actually “deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing.” A woman is engaged to be married, but she can’t remember what her fiance looks like. And when she goes looking for him, she can’t find him — it’s a great gothic horror story, but also a beautifully written look at aging and vulnerability. You can listen to Jackson reading it here. Amazon/Powells

3) “The Janitor on Mars” by Martin Amis

Basically, there’s a robot living on Mars, but it’s been programmed not to reveal itself to Earth people until we’ve changed the atmosphere of our planet enough that we are already doomed to extinction. This happens in 2049, and the encounter with an ancient, extraterrestrial machine, which calls itself the “janitor,” causes a worldwide sensation. The janitor on Mars reveals the three billion year history of Martian civilization, and why it ended suddenly. Meanwhile, back on Earth, a boy named Timmy has been raped so violently he’s in the school infirmary — and the school janitor suspects the principal did it. The juxtaposition between the huge-picture “end of civilizations” stuff and the personal, small-scale stuff is just brilliant. Amazon/Powells

]]>https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/stories-dont-need-to-be-long-to-be-perfect/feed/1anguishedrepose18 Perfect Short Stories That Pack More Of A Punch Than Most Novels18 Perfect Short Stories That Pack More Of A Punch Than Most NovelsPenny WillanDon’t Squish A Spider Day!https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/dont-squish-a-spider-day/
https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/dont-squish-a-spider-day/#commentsSat, 14 Mar 2015 10:09:39 +0000http://aleebrock.wordpress.com/?p=72Continue reading →]]>Do you know what today is?

It’s national:

Save A Spider Day (March 14)

Physically, spiders aren’t what many would consider angelic creatures. It could be the amount of eyes spiders have. It could be the amount of legs. It could be the way that they move, or that, yes, some of them are poisonous. Maybe it’s some awkward amalgamation of the just-mentioned, as well as any other skewed fact floating around out there. Whatever the exact reason, for years now spiders have been looked at by humans with fear.

Don’t get us wrong: arachnophobia (the fear of spiders) is a very real thing. In no way are we trying to say that it isn’t, or that those that suffer from it should for some reason feel ashamed. In celebration of Save a Spider Day (March 14th), what we hope this list says — what we hope this list proves — is that spiders aren’t just something to be screamed at, or squished beneath boot heels, but something to be respected, and even admired.

1. Spiders Are Ingenious Hunters

Some spiders pounce on their prey. Some ensnare their prey in a web of silk. Some dig trap doors into the dirt and let their prey fall into a very similar ball of silk. And others? There are many others that have their own individual way of hunting — their own techniques, their own schemes, etc. Which is impressive, no?

2. They Call Earth Home

The exact number of spider species is unknown. But, as of 2014, 45,000 different species had been identified. 45,000! And they span across the planet.

If you grew up watching classic Disney movies such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Cinderella,” or reading the Little Golden Book version of “Pinocchio,” you’re probably accustomed to thinking of fairy tales as wholesome entertainment for young children.

That’s why it may come as a shock to watch “Snow White” again as an adult and realize that it’s a bit macabre. For example, when the jealous queen orders the huntsman to kill Snow White, she demands that he bring back the girl’s heart in a jewel box as evidence of his violent deed. And that’s just the relatively sanitized, Disney-fied version. In the early 19th-century version published by the German brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, the queen wants to devour Snow White’s lungs and liver .

The original versions of most of these fantasy stories are filled with plot twists that belong in a modern slasher film. In part, that’s because fairy tales didn’t start out as children’s stories, but rather as tawdry folktales that grownups told for entertainment after the kids went to bed.

When the Grimms published their first edition of “Nursery and Household Tales” in two volumes in 1812 and 1815, they aimed it at adults [sources: New Yorker, Meslow]. Only after disappointing sales did they decide to tone down the material and make it suitable for kids. The tales mostly came from friends and relatives, which the brothers significantly revised. Many were variations of French fairy tales already written by people like Charles Perrault.

But even after the authors sanitized them, they didn’t totally eliminate the scary stuff. That’s because fairy tales were intended not just to entertain children, but also to educate them about the consequences of evil deeds . Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, for one, argued that the creepy stuff helps children to grow emotionally, by allowing them to grapple with fears that are a part of growing up.

Here are 10 fairy tales that are far more disturbing than you realized as a kid.

10: Pinocchio

When you think back to the 1940 Disney version of “Pinocchio,” you probably remember the puppet’s nose growing to indicate fibs, and his cute little pal Jiminy Cricket, who sings the movie’s memorable song “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

But as Time magazine critic Richard Corliss notes: “The movie also taught moral lessons in the most useful way, by scaring the poop out of the little ones.” The script emphasizes, for example, the dangers of running away from home and falling into the clutches of an evil adult. As kidnapper Stromboli tells Pinocchio, “When you grow too old, you will make good firewood.” But the film’s source material, an 1883 story by Carlo Collodi, is even more disturbing. When Pinocchio is teased about his wooden head by his cricket companion, the enraged puppet throws a hammer and kills him….

]]>https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/fairy-tales-gone-darkly/feed/0anguishedreposePenny WillanThe little niche book that would, will become the little niche book that could!https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/the-little-niche-book-that-would-will-become-the-little-niche-book-that-could/
https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/the-little-niche-book-that-would-will-become-the-little-niche-book-that-could/#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2015 03:13:00 +0000http://aleebrock.wordpress.com/?p=68Continue reading →]]>Penny Willan and the Well…

Is. Now. PUBLISHED!

And for those of you who think you might be interested enough to check it out, let me warn you…

It is every different from ANYTHING out there now.

It is very niche.

Very.

Probably stemming from the fact that is has a wide array of influencing elements.

To say I hate spiders? Understatement. To me, they are everything that is evil in this world. Everything that is dark, hairy, crawly, and fangy. What’s not to loathe? They creep me out and in real-world ways that no fictional serial slasher, like Michael Myers, ever could. Also? Not a fan of being in nature. Don’t be me wrong, I love the peace of it, I love the isolation of it, I love looking at it; there are times, like right after a nice, light rain, that I even love smelling it, but being in it? Nope. Not a fan. Too much going on out IN it, that I can’t see, nor control, and I don’t like that. (Yes, yes… I have control issues. What of it?) Plus, I walked, face-first, into a HUGE spider web one night, while out in nature years ago, and well, what can I say… It left an impression.

Or, well, the huge spider I clutched in my hand, as I flung it from me, as I screamed into the night, once I caught it crawling on my face, trying to crawl into my mouth, to, you know, probably to eat my soul, but hey… Purely supposition on my part.

That’s a few things that I don’t like, which has influenced me. What I DO like?

I am a HUGE, old school fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy Summers (the title character on the show) was a character a girl could look up to. She wasn’t a simpering damsel wasn’t waiting to be rescued. Oh, no… SHE did the rescuing. SHE did the wooing… And she did it with style, swag and sassiness. She saved the world… A lot. Strong, fun female leads are so rare. I guess that’s why I cherish this one so much and why it stays ever so beloved, no matter the passage of time.

I adore the atmosphere found in the classic monster movies Dracula, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein, The Mummy. That classic Gothic feel, of otherworldly darkness. A place of monsters and darkness, but told in such a way one can’t help but appreciate the romance of them.

I love original fairy tales. Not the watered down versions as told by Disney, but the original tales as told, for example, by Hans Christian Andersen. In their original form, fairy tales were cautionary in purpose. They were meant to serve as warnings for those foolish enough to embark upon life choices the majority where not in favor of. They were dark, often twisted and yet somehow, oddly enough, at the end of them? The reader was often left still OK with the result.

I have such a blast watching horror movies, Edgar Allan Poe is the poet I am most often drawn too, I live for the thrummy beat of rock and roll, both lyrics and beat, The Monkey’s Paw still scares me in ways I cherish… I love the history channel and its documentaries, the concept of the seven deadly sins has always fascinated me, I enjoy contemplating how others view moralistic choices via philosophy and theology …I love the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, I love that feeling I get in my chest, when my heart melts after reading a good love story and I love how my pulse races when I can dive into a good book that has an epic battle, where ultimate evil and ultimate good are the two opposing foes.

So much of who I am, so much of what I dislike and so much of what I love all played a part in the creation of my book, Penny Willan and the Well. I loved writing, though at times I never thought I would never get finished. I loved creating it, though at times I felt I was putting far too much into it that people would not pick up on.

Ultimately, I wrote this book for one person.

Me.

I wrote a book I desperately desired to read, when another could not be found.

And I enjoyed the whole, maddening process of it, every part, immensely.

It is my fervent hope, that you might as well.

Take a chance, try it out, see if you can see any of the things that I love and adore mentioned above that so influenced my while writing it and you might find this little niche book that would, will become the little niche book that could…

Find its way to your own list of things you love and adore that might one day influence you.

1. Vanity is useless.
Truly, Tokien wrote his books to please himself and answer the writer inside him. He expected them to go “into the waste-paper basket” after they left his desk, not live on in popular culture. I’m not saying we don’t need to learn good story craft however, if you entertain yourself, at least you know one person that enjoyed the hell out of your book.

3. Listen to critics you trust.
When his editor said, “Make it better,” he didn’t throw the advice away. He read and re-read, and he tried his best.

He credits listening to knowledgeable feedback, and working to make it better, for what he considered the best scene in the Lord of the Rings: “the confrontation between Gandalf and his rival wizard, Saruman, in the ravaged city of Isengard.” Oh, and the editor he listened to? C.S. Lewis, the creator of the Chronicles of Narnia.

4. Let your interests drive your writing.
Tolkien’s original interest was in languages. He took that and created new languages, and then an entire culture, around it. Our own contributor, Kathryn Craft, was a dancer, choreographer, and dance critic. She tapped all that experience to write The Art of Falling, exploring themes of love, dance, friendship, and distorted body image. that passion and truth will resonate with readers.

5. Poetry can lead to great prose.
When he could not express his thoughts in the prose he wished for, he wrote much of it in verse. Authors as diverse as Charlotte Brontë and Langston Hughes started in poetry before moving to longer mediums. Next time you get stuck, you might try Tolkien’s trick of writing your scene as a poem first.

6. Happy accidents.
No matter how much you plan, happy accidents occur on the pages of every book. Jennifer Crusie calls it “the girls in the basement,” saying they hand her up treasures as she writes. Others might call it “the muse.”

One more kick in the pants from our own Laura Drake: If you don’t put your butt in the chair and do the work, you won’t have any “happy accidents.”

]]>https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/writing-tips-from-the-master-j-r-r-tolken/feed/59a530db686f4e2a503c59e3d2f7e180banguishedrepose9a530db686f4e2a503c59e3d2f7e180bDelight of Discovery & ‘Penny Willan’… with excerpt!https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/delight-of-discovery-penny-willan-with-excerpt/
https://aleebrock.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/delight-of-discovery-penny-willan-with-excerpt/#commentsWed, 04 Mar 2015 05:35:58 +0000http://aleebrock.wordpress.com/?p=49Continue reading →]]>What makes a good story? For me, there are a few elements that are critical.

Nothing makes me happier than to come across a story that takes all of my desired elements, tosses in a little Gothic noir, gives it a little shake and then lets the goodness pour out.

Thou, I must admit, when it comes to reading? Seems like that delight of discovery has been happening a little less of late.

Often at times, I find myself scanning over link after link of books on Amazon, reading the book description and leaving the site without nary a purchase. All because I am just so bored with the commonplace, the normal, the average literary fare.

I want a story, and a unique one. I’m so tired of reading stories that can be easily interchanged with another, by simply swapping character names. The current themes found in popular literature are exhausted: dystopian, new young adult, mom porn, witches and zombies—oh my!

When was the last time you read something, something new, something different…That grabbed you by the throat and didn’t let go?

When was the last time you read something that changed the way you experienced what you read…A story that stuck with you long after you read it?